


It Used To Be That

by Meduseld



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst, Hello fandom how are you?, Internalized Biphobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, The feelings are mostly implied, mostly happy ending though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 14:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13319634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meduseld/pseuds/Meduseld
Summary: Sonny deals with his feelings for Barba. Poorly.





	It Used To Be That

**Author's Note:**

> This was written before Gone Baby Gone aired so it’s just slightly AU. Title from [_Hurt Me_ by The Jezabels](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTgG-dtGIfs), which is also suggested listening for this fic.

In West Virginia, he dreams of Barba.

It’s one of those dreams where it feels like you’re awake, set in the same motel room bed he’s stretched out on. But the sheets shift and rise and Barba’s there, like Ursula Andress out of the ocean.

He’s naked.

On the bed, he spreads his legs and lets Barba have him, cover him, mark him, slip inside him, the way it feels he already is.

For a second when he wakes up, he’s smiling. Then he’s just sticky and ashamed and unmoored.

Since he’d gotten to SVU he’d denied having a crush on the counselor with every breath, taking every joke with good humor and calm. Fin, Amaro, Rollins and even the Lieutenant had smirked at him.

He just admired the guy, he’d said. He’d _believed_.

Sonny can’t say that now, anymore.

The black feeling in his gut only gets worse when he sees who slinks out of Ama-Rollins’s door. She’d turned him down and it’s. Did she know? Could she smell it on him?

His whole life, he said he didn’t have a problem with it, with guy that were- but he wasn’t. He _wasn’t_. He liked girls.

That was true, he hadn’t been faking it with anyone he’d been with. He’d had thoughts sometimes stray things, and maybe he could admit to thinking about Barba’s eyes, once or twice, when he was, _uh_ , taking care of himself but they were nice eyes.

And he really did admire Barba: his wit, his skill, his absolute refusal to leave a courthouse without spilling blood on the floor.

So he’d gotten close and treasured every small smile, every morsel of praise. Until Barba had gutted him so skillfully that he’s still trying to hold himself closed.

It was right after the goddamn shitshow the Linwood case had been, saved only by the Lieutenant, who was probably the biggest badass he’d ever known. And fuck if his feelings toward Barba weren’t completely different. Should have been a clue, and he does that for a living.

Another one should have been the fact that he’d gone to Barba with some flimsy excuse because it comforted him, just a few minutes in his office and under his total regard. It didn’t matter that Barba’s eyes stayed mostly on the endless casefiles he was reviewing, he felt the weight of his attention. In his domain, Barba was king.

He’d been growling into his cellphone when Sonny had walked in, but he’d flapped a hand in his direction so he’d collapsed on the couch, casting an eager eye over all the open folders. “Problem, Counselor?” he’d grinned just to hear Barba snort.

“No more so than usual. Just the wonderfully Kafkaesque procedure to switch cases with another ADA”.

“They’re dumping something on you?” he’d said, voice already defensive, ready to go to bat for Barba. The counselor didn’t play politics, or rather he didn’t play them _well_ , and Sonny kept his ears pricked for bureaucratic underhandedness.

“To my colleagues’ eternal validation, I am the problem this time” and before Sonny could try for a careful “ _oh?_ ” to see if he could get any more details Barba took pity on him. “It’s a conflict of interest. The defense attorney is an ex of mine”.

His heart had jumped and his mind had kicked into high gear, mentally sorting Carmen’s favorite pastries to see what would be most effective as a bribe for information. His mouth had moved on its own: “Bad breakup, huh?”

Barba had rolled his eyes and Sonny had grinned.

“Hardly. More like he knows he doesn’t have a chance of beating me”.

“He?” Sonny heard his own voice from somewhere far away. It sounded weird, grating, terrible and alien _._ “You’re…” Sonny couldn’t finish the world. The thought.

Something in Barba’s face changed.

It had taken him until much later to realize it had been a flash of real fear, the crushing moment that Barba had realized he’d gambled on Sonny and _lost_. Then his usual courtroom mask had fallen over it.

“My boss already knows” he said, voice like steel. “And so does Lieutenant Benson, Detective”.

And suddenly Sonny was on the other side, behind the barrier Barba kept between himself and strangers, enemies. Just like that he stopped being Barba’s- Barba’s what? Friend? They weren’t that.

“No, I- It’s...” he stumbled, trying to find the words. “I’m not- I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I’m just not, y’know.  _I’m_ not-”

“I didn’t realize I’d asked” Barba said, voice like razor wire. And damn but it _hurt_. He could feel his face moving but he had no idea what it was doing, all of it completely out of his control.

Barba looked annoyed and said “What were you here for, again, Detective?” Sonny swallowed hard.

“Just tell me so you can be on your way” and even in the early days, when Barba rolled his eyes every time Sonny so much as breathed, those words had never sounded quite like that. He’d forgotten whatever excuse he’d prepared. “I had a legal question, Counselor, but forget it, I can answer it” he said, wincing while he heard himself.

Barba made a sound, that could have been mocking or hurt or furious or all of the above.

“What?” —he said, desperate to get them back on even keel, to the world where Sonny was welcome in Barba’s office— “No jokes about Fordham? Or maybe switch it up this time and give Staten Island some love?”

Like a shadow, something else moved over Barba’s face. He couldn’t name it.

“I’ll just say that this is the first time that you’ve ever lived down to my expectations, Detective Carisi”.

And just like that it was over. Sonny turned and left.

It kept cutting at him, second by second, day by day, all the things in that sentence, those few words, that had destroyed him so completely.

What it implied, what it admitted, what he wouldn’t give to take it all back.

It was keeping him up nights, now. He must have walked back into the squad room looking like he’d gone six rounds with Floyd Mayweather and lost every one. But no one had noticed in the chaos brought in by Katie Miller and then suddenly there was West Virginia and no more room to hide.

Sonny felt like he was outside of himself, staring at a skinny stranger he found wanting.

He can’t hit the mark with anybody, not Rollins, not Fin, not the Lieu. He doesn’t even try Barba, carefully avoiding him and agonizing over whether that would make things worse. Not that he can see how anything could be worse than this, now, like he’s missing a limb.

It’s _almost_ a relief when Noah gets taken, to have something so all-consuming to do, and he runs himself so ragged he can’t even muster up the energy to feel bad about thinking it.

They get it done, in the end, because that’s what they do. 

Sonny's their only casualty. He takes the butt of a rifle to the face but it looks worse that it is, a swollen slice across his cheek that Fin insists in the kind of sexy the ladies will take notice of.

He knows it’s actually the kind that makes people want to cross the street to avoid him but it’s unlikely to scar.

Amanda runs her hand along his arm as he turns to leave when they finish a debrief so grueling they’re trying not to drop. He smiles at her and she smiles back.

He should go home. He knows that. They’re not about to have a lot of downtime, while at least some of the bureaucratic details are settled, but he can’t.

There’s still something on his mind, nagging at him.

Barba is, unsurprisingly, still at work, surrounded by castles of paperwork.

There’s no way he’ll be given Noah’s case, he’s too close, but Sonny would bet his last dollar that he’s helping with it anyway. He’s got that little crease between his eyebrows, the one that says focus instead of annoyance, and Sonny’s done denying that he’s catalogued every expression Barba’s ever had.

He indulges himself, just a little, lingering in the doorway and enjoying the view. Then he raps his knuckles on the doorframe.

Barba’s eyes go wide.

He goes to make a joke but Barba’s on him, hand outstretched awkwardly between them where it stops, halfway to Sonny’s face. “Christ, what happened to you?” he whispers.

“C’mon, Counselor, you haven’t heard?” he says with a bravado he doesn’t feel, wincing when his grin stretches the cut. Barba’s eyes meet his and he swallows hard. He flicks his head, just the tiniest twitch, and Barba finally touches him.

It’s so careful, so _gentle_ , Sonny’s eyes slide shut and he presses himself against his palm as hard as he can handle.

“I’m sorry” he whispers.

“For what, getting hurt? I’m not under any delusions that you’re Superman”.

He could take that for the olive branch it is, the opportunity to bury the past in the past and pretend it never happened. But Sonny’s done being a coward.

“I lied to you. Earlier. I think you knew that, already” he says, looking Barba in the eye because that’s the least he owes him. Barba just nods. “I don’t...I don’t know what I’m doing here. But I’m done ignoring it”.

Barba’s thumb rubs just a little and his hand starts to pull away. Sonny makes a noise, soft but desperate and tries to lean further into his touch. Which is a mistake because he jars his wound and pulls away hissing.

“Sorry” —he mumbles— “I’m making a mess of this”.

“Under the circumstances, that’s understandable” Barba says and it’s worse, somehow, his kindness. Sonny must really be pathetic, here.

“Get some sleep” he says, gently pushing Sonny’s shoulder toward the door. “Rich, coming from you” Sonny says with a ghost of a smile and he nearly turns toward the door. But he can’t go like this.

“Tell me we’re okay” he says because he meant it, the bit about not being a coward anymore. “We are” Barba says, eyes green and solemn and their weight comforts him.

Sonny stares a little too long and eventually Barba snorts. “What are you waiting for, a goodnight kiss?” and it’s like they were before, or better.

“And if I am?” he says, feeling lighter than he has a in a long time. “I’d say you’d have to earn that” Barba says, tone suddenly turning cautious.

Sonny’s shoulders go tense.

He deserves whatever’s coming.

“But I don’t think I’d rule it out entirely”.

Sonny grins all the way home. He’s got a long road, he’s sure of that, but he thinks he might have Barba, too. He can live with that. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I should have been in bed an hour ago but whatever. Those of you who know me know what’s coming: unnecessary explanations. In this case agonizing over whether or not Sonny would reference Ursula Andress and [her iconic scene in _Dr. No_ (1962)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ6mOC4uSX4) but in the end I liked it too much to change it.


End file.
